Garden of Earthly Delights
by stefanie bean
Summary: It's 1900. Meg and Christine haven't seen each other for thirty years, and now Christine wants a reunion, much to Meg's surprise. Meg and Phantom pairing. Alternative ending and sequel to Schumacher POTO movie.
1. Peach Silk

CHAPTER ONE - Peach Silk

I had just opened the account books of the Giry Academy of Dance when Nabilah brought in the note. I set it to one side, not seeing the return address on the lavender-scented, thick-papered envelope.

You, my love, busied yourself in your studio preparing for a trip to Berlin. Because you were still here, Nabilah remained veiled, her black-lined eyes shining soft and expressive above the thin fabric. Her widowhood still hung on her like the fog of blue gauze that covered her head and narrow shoulders.

You, who had lived so many years behind a mask, thought it ironic that our Egyptian maid should mask herself whenever she was in your presence. You still masked yourself in so many ways - in your reclusiveness, your prickliness around others, your temperamental nature in which darkness mixed with fire and occasionally erupted. But you didn't erupt towards Nabilah or her two little children or myself, although I occasionally cleaned up a thrown ink pot, or rescued a manuscript page or sketch from the coal fire.

One such rescue of a few pages resulted in _Giordano Bruno_, your latest opera opening in Berlin next week. Paris wouldn't touch it, and the papers screamed "heresy" and "blasphemy" when you tried to get it produced.

In some ways I wished I'd let your story burn. Long before that marvelous English fantasist H.G. Wells, the doomed Bruno conceived of stars with solar systems, and planets with other beings. Like you, Bruno danced close to the edge of the cliff as he travelled between countries, at home nowhere, at risk everywhere. Betrayal in Venice cast him into the hands of first the Inquisition and then into the fire. Like you, the world of his day was too small for his thoughts and for his works. Like you, the powers of his age confused reason and skill with magic. And they killed him for it.

Almost thirty years now. I thought I would get used to it, the wait for the knock on the door, the wait for the arrest, the wait for the newspapers screaming like ravenous dogs for raw meat. But I hadn't.

I browsed quickly through the notes. There were payments from students. Some reviews clipped from New York papers described the "revolutionary new dance techniques coming out of Paris's Giry Studio." That made me laugh, because New York wanted nothing of my art when I lived there. A student requested a reference so she could join a eurythmic dance troupe in Berlin. Last of all, I picked up the scent-soaked letter with its vaguely familiar wax seal. When I turned it over, the blood froze in my body and the sun blurred before my eyes.

The turn of the millenium is supposed to bring the Four Horsemen. Everyone expects the apocalypse this coming winter, when the calendar rolls from Anno Domini 1900 to 1901, in the reign of Napoleon IV of France, God preserve him. But perhaps for my husband and I, the apocalypse has decided to come early.

The Vicomtesse de Chagny, the former Christine Daae, had sent me a note.

We had met briefly in the five years since you and I had returned to Paris from America. It was impossible not to, as we travelled in many of the same circles. We smiled at each other and nodded, she on the arm of her tall and glossy husband, and I alone or with Nabilah, for you, my love, did not show yourself in society or attend premieres.

Christine and I never really spoke. The years had been hard on her. Her thick curly hair had grown thin and straight, and she teased it up into a stiff frothy mass, with wispy curls plastered to her forehead. She wore an enormous bustle poking out from behind, which contrasted absurdly with her bony shoulders and thin arms. Her voice echoed piercing and high at the Dutch ambassador's reception, cutting through the smoke and Mozart.

"I never believed it," she called out, "until I received the invitation in my hand to meet the Empress at court." Several of the younger men turned away from her as they went to refresh their drinks or seek conversation elsewhere. I caught a glimpse of the Vicomte in the smoking room, until the slam of a door cut off the sight of black frock coats and the sound of rough male laughter.

After awhile I stopped fearing her. Of her children I knew little, only tidbits from the mothers and patrons of my students. Devotees of modern dance gossiped just as much as those of the ballet, but no one in the studios seemed terribly interested in the Vicomtesse de Chagny. There was a daughter in a convent, and a boy mentioned only in hushed whispers who lived in Montmartre and who wrote novels that were banned in America.

I turned the envelope over again and again before opening it. Every day we add another little layer onto the shell that protects us from the world, until a hammer comes down to smash our perfectly constructed shield, leaving us naked and squirming like an oyster.

I don't know why I resented her so. Her abdication thirty years ago gave me my heart's greatest joy and delight even in the midst of fear and pain. But thirty years is a long time to think, and at times I wondered if you would have been happier had she simply been kind and loved you.

You never reproached me or gave me any reason to doubt your fidelity, but your eyes never lost the dark, faraway shadow of the sword that hung over us but never fell. Your librettos all ended either in death, or devastation, or lovers ripped out of each other's arms practically at the moment of consummation. I knew too well the dark, deep well from which you drew.

The letter was short and a bit gauche. Manners were never Christine's strong suit, and I wondered how she had survived her first few years as the wife of nobility. She wanted to meet me for tea, and asked that I name the location. She knows I wouldn't enter that overwrought townhouse through the back door like a servant, and a Vicomtesse can't just show herself in some Left Bank cafe. So it's obvious she's fishing for an invitation.

What's also obvious is what's on her mind. You're what's on her mind. She wants to see where you live, to pick over a fragment or two of your life. To see how you've gotten along without her all these years.

I found you in your studio, humming to yourself as you rummaged through stacks of drawings, putting the selections into a long leather portfolio. You sorted through one set design blueprint and rough sketch after another. "What are these for?" I asked.

You appeared to ignore me, but I knew better. Once on a track, your thoughts stayed there. You followed the path until it suited you to stop, and in your own time you acknowledged that tapping at the sealed chamber of your mind. When you chose to open it, you did, and all I had to do was wait long enough.

"They're for a lobby exhibit. The Berlin Opera likes to showcase the stage art, and they want my concept drawings." You ran your hands through your long grey hair, thinking, your mind never quiet, even though your face remained impassive and still.

I waited a little longer, and then, as if the tumblers of a lock had all slowly clicked into place, you swung the door of your attention open to me. I handed you the note. You read it silently and said, "Invite her over."

"Here. You are serious."

"After I've gone to Berlin, of course."

"I'm afraid of her. Are you?"

"Not afraid. Just unsure. Why are you afraid of her?"

Years ago, we told each other that if one of us asked the other, "Why?" we would always answer. "Because I fear her power over us," I said.

"She has no power over us. What you mean is, you fear her power over me."

"I won't deny it. If she had no power over you, why would you want me to have her here when you are away? Don't give me that look. I know you still love her, and I accepted that half a lifetime ago. Are you afraid she still carries something inside for you? That she loves you still?"

"I wouldn't call it love. For a few minutes, perhaps, I thought it was love, and then knew from the aftermath that it wasn't."

"What was it, then?"

"She wanted me, but couldn't admit it."

I laughed. "You are distracted, aren't you? You've mismatched your hose. Who wouldn't want you?"

"Most of the world, judging from my reviews."

"Not in Prussia. Not in America, or Sweden."

"Anywhere without a monarchy."

"Considering how you show them as inbred, incompetent fools, it's not surprising. Anyway, Sweden was a monarchy, last time I looked. And I still have that invitation from the Japanese ambassador. They want you to put on a production of _David and Bathsheba_ in Tokyo."

"Yes, I remember. They sat in the auditorium and wrote down as much of the score and libretto as they could, then re-constructed the orchestration. They put on a private concert of their favorite arias for the Emperor. I don't recall giving them permission. Very clever, actually."

Of all your operas, I liked _David and Bathsheba_ the least. "They like it for the sad ending," I said softly, and I felt like weeping. Always a tragedy with you. You couldn't end your story with Solomon's birth - no, you had to end with David holding the body of his dead son, crying out his anguish to God.

You sensed the tears that didn't fall, for you held me in your long warm arms still roped with fine muscle after all your years. I kissed the soft flesh under your chin, all collapsed now as it fell in a loose curtain past your throat to your slender collarbones.

"Berlin is one thing," I said, after working my way down from your chin to your warm chest, "but Tokyo is quite another. We would be gone three months, at least."

"I want to do it, Meg. And I want you with me."

"Of course. Oh, look," I said in surprise. "You're packing evening dress clothes. Are you actually going to one of your premieres? What changed your mind?" Now I was really frightened, because after the premiere came parties, and interviews, and daguerrotypes in the papers.

You looked away, embarrassed. It wasn't selfishness, just the solo flight of a bird that had never learned to flock. "I didn't even think of going myself until this morning. You know that I lay awake most of the night …"

"You kicked me enough."

"You kicked back. It occurred to me that nothing held me back anymore, that the bars I crouched behind were bars I'd kept propped up myself. Why shouldn't I drink champagne at my own premiere? Some of it had to do with simply getting old - that all those things I tried to hide so long ago simply didn't matter anymore to anyone. All men are equal in death; all men are ugly in old age, and there simply seemed no reason any longer to care."

"Care about what? That people might stare at you? They've been staring at you for thirty years, and you saw that it was nothing, that it meant nothing."

"Nothing at all," you said softly in reply.

"You need to take something back that you said. The one heresy that will definitely get you roasted at the stake, like Giordano."

"Heresy? What heresy did I commit now?"

"That you're an ugly old man. Old man you are, old goat, actually, but ugly, never."

"_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_."

"Not good enough. Show me you mean it."

You pulled me closer to you and the thick mat of grey hair on your bare chest tickled my lips as I ran them through it. "Lecherous old goat," I said.

"Greedy old woman, more like it," you said as you took my face into your hands and kissed down into me as far as you could go, farther with every kiss, with every year, until a vast hollow space opened in me that could only be filled one way.

"I won't get packed, at this rate," you said, pulling back for breath. "My train leaves at seven."

"I'll help you."

"You? It takes you twice as long to pack as me. Twice as long to undress, too."

"Race you."

"That's a cheat. Woman, do you think after thirty years you've mastered the art of unbuttoning a fly?"

"You be the judge of that. Ah, I see I haven't lost my touch."

"No," you said in between gasps, "You haven't. Not at all."

"Umm … but you're not living up to your part of the bargain. Can you still unhook a corset? Oh, obviously you can. You like that slip, eh? It's Japanese silk. Remember the one you bought me, the rose silk one?"

"Peach, as I recall," and your hands went all over and under my silk, stopping at the small of my back, pulling me in closer. You pushed your clothes aside on the bed, and into the soft folds of the comforter we sank. I moved up onto you, tenderly and slowly, trying not to see you wince as I rested a little too heavily on your hips.

"There, is that better?" I whispered.

"It's the hip; it's never been right since this past winter."

"Poor hip," I said, stroking you up and down with my body, with my hands. "I'll be gentle."

"Yes, it was peach, not rose," you breathed. "Beautiful peach silk, like this."

Gently we rocked, and under me you filled my ache with warm living darkness that caressed me tenderly from the inside out. You stirred me like warm soup on the stove, up to the boil, and little flickers of happiness went over me, outside and in. While I feared for you in Berlin, I rejoiced that finally you might come out of the shadows into the sunlight of the world. In your shaking flesh I felt your struggle to emerge into the light, to face the crowds one step and one year at a time, to have it all peak at this moment.

Tenderly you rolled me over onto your side. "Some new delight, always," you breathed softly into my neck. "How can men grow weary of their wives?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Don't ever tire of me. Every time, I wonder if it will be our last."

"Don't worry so much. You're so full of light and life, and yet you carry around this doom inside of you. It makes no sense. Be happy, Meg." Then you laughed softly, with just a trace of the old bitterness. "If I can be happy, then anyone can."

"Are you happy now?"

"As delighted as a cat in the sun and full of anticipation I can't explain. I'm sixty-three years old, and for the first time I'm going to sit in an opera box that I earned, with a production not won by force, and face the recognition without hiding."

I knew what you meant. Your first stage production had ended rather badly.

"I wish I could be there to see it."

"You didn't know. I promise you, there will be another opening in Paris. I know it's been three years since _Attila the Hun_ opened here, but it won't be the last. Look, if I don't pack, I'm not going anywhere."

I watched you swiftly and deftly pack your few bags. How you made a crease so crisp, or a shirt so flat, I couldn't imagine. It wasn't that you were intrinsically neat; your studio with its piles of books, drawings, papers, notes, folios gave the lie to that. But everything about your person crackled. You travelled so lightly, too. Most men going to Berlin for a week would have taken a trunk, but you had only your leather portfolio and a small bag for a few clothes.

You washed and dressed yourself and I watched your graceful movements unspeaking. I thought my heart would break with tenderness, and as always I drew my bravery from you.

"So you think I should invite Christine de Chagny here?"

"I do. There's something she needs here. Don't you think we can spare some of it?"

Our bedroom surrounded us like a mother's arms, with the deep feather-comforted bed and your drawings lining the wall. When you brought the rose and red papers and fabrics home, and hung the thick folded curtains on the windows, I didn't like them, but now I sunk into their smooth, feminine richness. Once I asked you, "Wouldn't you have liked a more masculine room?" and you said, "In this room, I'm inside of you. This room is you. This is how I see you."

So I lay back in our bed, looking at the pale ceiling and watching the sun creep across the curtains. "What do you think she wants?" I finally asked.

"She wants to know what happened. She wants to know about me."

"Then why doesn't she write you directly?"

"Somehow I don't think Monsieur Le Vicomte would take to that too kindly. He seemed rather resentful of me the last time we saw one another. Nor do I think you would appreciate that much."

"All this fencing. Of course I will see her. Perhaps you, too, want to know what happened, and want to hear about her."

Your back, turned to me, gave a little slump. Face into your shaving kit, you said, "You see through me."

"Like glass."

"You'll tell me?"

"Everything."

(_to be continued_)


	2. The Dance of Shiva

CHAPTER TWO - The Dance of Shiva

I wrote Christine, and sooner than I wanted, the day of her visit arrived. Carriage wheels crunched on gravel, and then I heard the silvery tinkle of the doorbell. She stood at the door, small and fragile-looking in a powder-blue afternoon dress. 

"I'm glad to have you in our home." I wasn't so sure about that, but it needed to be said. I took her hand and led her inside. "Your coachman can come into the kitchen and have his tea there," I said as she crossed the threshhold into our greatroom. "Good man, come round to the kitchen door to your left and Rochelle will have something there for you."

I liked his looks, a tall, cheeky man of about thirty, with a reddish face and foxy-colored moustache and sideburns. He tipped his hat and smiled as he went past me toward the kitchen door.

Christine stared around the room, and at once I saw our house through her eyes.

You had designed our stone villa on the small plot just outside Paris. In the center was the kitchen. Rather than shunting it off to some dreary remote corner of the house, you put the kitchen at the center and around it wrapped our "greatroom," as you called it. Your great space soared upwards, full of light and moving air. 

Always a magpie, you collected shiny or unusual objects and filled our central room with all sorts of oddities. Christine stared with parted lips, her face far away. "It's beautiful. So familiar."

A sharp pang went through me. She had seen your home under the earth, stayed there, probably looked over your drawings, your models, heard your now-vanished music, all lost now. I had only glimpsed it in passing as I ran to follow you through the darkness. But she'd had her hands on it, just as she'd had her hands on you.

She paused in front of a bronze of Shiva and his wife Parvati, the goddess's hip inclined to the right, breasts jutting out. Leaning on her thigh was the fat-bellied, elephant-headed Ganesha.

"There's a story behind this," she said. "He had a statue like it. I never got to ask what it was about."

"This story I know. Do you want to hear it?" I said. That statue was in your bedroom. I saw it there, too, but only for a second. 

"Thank you. I always wondered about it."

"Shiva was lord of the gods and Sati was his true love," I said, pleased that she wanted to hear. "She died, and he hid himself in a deep cave, leaving men to fend for themselves. The rest of the gods complained but it didn't do any good. Shiva just sat in his cave meditating. 

"So the queen of the gods took the form of Parvati, who tried to lure him out of his cave. He ignored her and just kept on contemplating. Parvati decided to show him up. She slept on the ground, didn't bathe, wouldn't eat. She denied herself so long and so hard that Shiva finally woke from his trance and took her as his wife.

"It was Parvati who woke Shiva to song, to dance, to art. See, there's another one over here of Shiva dancing. Shiva watches over the arts."

The greatroom had a door to the garden, and I headed that way, but she stopped in front of a large wash sketch of Bathsheba.

"It looks like you," she said softly.

"I was the model, yes. It was just a rough idea. The costumers made it all stiff and horrible, and the soprano threw a tantrum."

"Some things don't change, do they?"

I smiled, and for the first time since she'd arrived I meant it. "No, they don't. Come on, we'll have our tea outside."

In the sun-drenched garden Rochelle's motherly hands had coaxed from the lilac bushes a purple weight of thick-smelling flowers. Between the lilacs you had built a bower, and Rochelle had planted wisteria. Under this violet covering sat a small table set for tea. The sun was still high, but twilight could just be seen coming up the path.

"Oh, Rochelle. Puff pastry, and shrimp salad. And lemon bars. You outdid yourself. What's this, a bottle of Fino sherry? Christine, do you care for some?"

"Tea first, please. But later, yes."

A few screeches came from behind the yews and Christine looked around swiftly. Two little boys streaked out through the bushes and headed down the path that led from the house out to the pond. Nabilah followed, calling out in Arabic.

"It's only Ahmed and Yasim," I said. "Nabilah's boys. They love the garden."

"How did you find them?"

"Nabilah's husband helped build this house. He was a Coptic Christian from Egypt. My husband liked his conversation and he was an excellent stonemason. It just seemed natural that they should live here, and the children were so happy. But then he grew ill and suddenly died. The doctors said it was his heart; there was something seriously wrong with it inside. There was never a question of Nabilah leaving after that."

"I didn't know anything about managing servants when I married Raoul. At first they stole the salt and sugar shakers, wouldn't make the beds, drank the cooking wine."

"How did you manage?" I asked, curious.

She smiled, and a little light crept into her face. "I had to ask my mother-in-law, the Comtesse. She took me in hand. I was only 17. I didn't know anything." 

"Who does, at that age?" I laughed. "We didn't have servants in New York, except for a woman who took in the washing. I had to haul the sheets through the street to her house. She was poorer than we were. I used to give her our shoes when we wore them out from walking on the pavement, and somehow her family used them."

"So you've been back from America five years now?"

"Almost exactly. We both missed Paris. I wanted to try some new forms of dance, and the Americans weren't having anything of it. And my mother was dying." That hurt to say.

Christine crossed herself. "I'm sorry we missed the funeral. She was like a mother to me in so many ways. Raoul had to go to Berlin because of that flare-up on the Alsace border. The Prussians were threatening to send troops."

"You sent so many Mass cards. I did appreciate it." I felt embarrassed for thinking she had bad manners. I was the one who didn't have a single Mass said for the Comtesse when she died last year.

"I needed to do it. Meg," she said, and her voice got very quiet, "do you believe that souls can come back? That they can visit us? Because I sensed your mother. In my house, and sometimes when riding past the Opera Populaire. As if she were still there. One evening I was afraid to look, afraid that she might be there. Standing on the steps." 

It was time for some sherry, and I poured us both generous glassfuls, as generous as a sherry glass could be, that is. "You're giving me gooseflesh. I used to not believe in ghosts. You remember I didn't believe in yours. But it's strange; she's been gone five years ago, but sometimes I do feel her, myself."

A cloud covered the late afternoon sun, and the wisteria suddenly looked very purple and heavy. "I have her first shoes," I went on. "I got them from the hospital, with the rest of her things. She had so little, but she kept those. They had little brown flecks all over the ribbons. I thought they were stains, but the lay sister who cared for her had been a dancer before being consecrated. She said that the dancers would prick their fingers before lacing up their shoes, for luck. I hung them in a little niche in the wall in our room, and I always have a candle."

"I never heard of that, with the finger pricking," she said. 

"Perhaps it was something they did long ago," I offered. "The sister was about my mother's age."

"Do you remember when we'd go into your mother's room and have tea parties? It was so full of pictures, of statues, little boxes full of shells and buttons. I remember she had a scarf embroidered with poppies. She used to let me wrap it around my head."

"I remember that. You pretended to be a gypsy."

"Whatever happened to all of that?"

"I don't know," I said. "We received the letter in the dead of winter. The harbors in New York and Boston were frozen over for a week, and we couldn't get passage. By the time we got to Paris, she'd gone into the hospital. I went to the landlady and talked to the servants, but no one knew anything definite. The landlady complained about the coal fire. Mother had burned all her letters."

"I didn't mean her things, Meg. I meant us as girls. All of it."

I took another swallow of sherry. It went down like clear silk. I didn't want to talk about Mother anymore. So we sat quietly for a time.

"You said you came back for the dancing, too," she offered.

"Do you know much about what they're now calling modern dance?"

"I've read about it in La Mode. You don't get up on your toes, I remember."

"I started working on it in New York about ten years ago. There is a group of us in Paris, mostly from America. It's funny - Americans generally don't like anything but classical ballet, but here in Paris they're on fire for interpretive dance, or what I like to call 'elemental dance,' here in Paris. It's like you have to try it in America, get kicked around there, come to Paris, and then go back to America. Then they like you." 

"Elemental dance?" she asked.

"It's based on the idea that the student uses her body to mimic one of the four elements - you know, earth, fire, water, or air. The elements are combined into the dance as an expression of the music."

"Don't you also wear almost nothing, just a short toga?"

I laughed. "I remember when we spun around on stage with almost nothing on."

"That one costume with rose-buds all over the shoulders. I can't remember what opera that was, but those straps. Mine would never stay up." She laughed, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of the girl I used to run hand-in-hand with, exploring the backstage of the Opera.

"They itched, too. Come to my studio and watch us practice sometime. Who knows, you might enjoy it. You might even want to try it yourself."

She nodded, surprised. "I'd like that. I don't know if I'd try it, though."

"Well, you never know. Sometimes when you see those girls leap, you want to jump right up there with them."

"Do you have any children?" she asked.

"No. I've never been blessed. But tell me about your family."

"The Vicomte has been offered a position in the diplomatic corps, to a posting in Belgium. He left a fortnight ago."

"Wonderful," I said. "I love Brussels, myself. You must be so proud of him."

"I am. It's been hard for him, with our son…"

"Your son? What's wrong?" 

"Luc-Pierre is twenty-eight, but still thinks he's an adolescent. He won't marry, won't take up his family responsibilities, and then there are those books. The Americans smuggle them in, do you know that? What's worse is that Raoul seems to encourage him. I think it's hurt Raoul with the emperor, but he says not. He says that the reason he hasn't yet been made an ambassador is because he wants to stay in Paris. With us."

"He sounds very devoted."

"I was dreadfully ill after Luc-Pierre's birth and had to stay in bed. We had a baby nurse, and a wet nurse, of course, but Raoul wouldn't leave Luc-Pierre's side. He fired two nurses himself, saying they let the baby cry or didn't change him fast enough. You should have heard Raoul's father, the Comte. Unmanly, he said. But Raoul and Luc are very close."

"So what are his books about?"

"Oh, I haven't read them myself. But the way he described them, it's women living on their own, taking lovers whenever they please and leaving their husbands and children - the whole social order turned upside-down. 

"But that's not the worst. The police arrested him a few months ago, did you know that? He was writing articles in some cheap Montmartre broadside against the monarchy. He thinks we should have elections. I'm terrified for him."

I understood her fear. The prisons of Napoleon IV were not accommodations to be sought out. "Is he released now?" I asked nervously.

"They roughed him up and let him go, but it's only made him worse. He goes to cafes with these radicals who want to start a new political party. They call themselves the Republicans, after the Second Republic."

"That's dangerous talk," I remarked. "Erotic books are one thing. Challenging the monarchy is another."

"After he got out of jail he came to the house afterward. I was afraid to let him in. Raoul actually raised his voice to me and said that he was our son and was welcome anytime he wanted. I told Raoul he was betraying his class, and he actually snapped back at me, 'You have a right to talk about class? You were an orphan, a peasant orphan, and I fished you out of a cellar.' "

"Oh, no," I said. "I can't imagine Raoul raising his voice. He couldn't have meant it."

"He had never said anything like that to me before. He was so angry."

"What did Luc-Pierre do when Raoul said that?"

"Amazingly, he defended me. But shortly after that, Raoul accepted the posting in Brussels."

"You must be anxious to join him."

Her face darkened. "I'll have some more sherry, if you don't mind."

"All right, then. What about your daughter? How is she? She's, what, twenty-four?"

"Twenty-three. Martyniere's about to become a novitiate at the Convent of the Seven Sorrows in Port Royal. They're entirely cloistered. Once she takes the veil, I won't be able to see or speak with her. They're supposed to be dead to the world."

"Oh, Christine," I sighed. "How could you bear that?"

"We were never that close. She went away to boarding school when she was seven. They didn't even like them coming home for the whole summer; they said it made them worldly and unfit for the religious life. Raoul wouldn't send Luc-Pierre away. He said that boys' schools were like prisons. The Comte was so angry, but Raoul wouldn't give in."

"From what I've heard, your husband is probably right. For me, I couldn't imagine sending children away to school, although I know almost everyone does. Did Raoul have a bad time at school?"

"Not at all," she said. "But he felt Luc was somehow different, that the boxing, the fencing, the sports, the riding wouldn't suit him. Luc loved to write, and to talk."

"Cake, or lemon bars?" I asked, when she sat back, quiet, and a few hummingbirds darted in and out of the wisteria vines. I helped myself to a lemon bar and said, "I'll be honest with you. We've been back in Paris five years. I saw you and Raoul in your box at the opening of Attila the Hun three years ago, and at the Dutch ambassador's party last year. Why wait till now to see me?"

She looked very small and sad, bathed in soft purple light. "Because I missed you. You were my closest female friend. And it's not like you wrote or called on me, either."

That was true, and it hurt. "We were more like sisters," I said. "We grew up together."

"I look at my life, and I'm just sad. It feels as if it's all gone wrong. I don't know how or why."

"I've felt that way too, sometimes. It's not unusual at our time of life when everything changes. I'm what, a year older than you? Last year my courses stopped and I thought I would go mad, seriously. Perhaps it'll come later for you because you've had children. But it gets better."

"It's some of that," she said. 

"But that can't be all, can it?" I asked gently.

She shifted in her chair. "Because I missed him. I miss him."

"Yes," I said slowly. 

"You were always so kind, Meg. I wasn't kind."

"I'm not kind. I didn't want to invite you, at first, but he told me to. He's told me some of what happened back then. Oh, please don't look like that."

"He speaks of me, then?" she said in a trembling voice.

"Sometimes. When he does, he speaks of you gently." I can't tell her all of it, that sometimes I see her behind your eyes or when a certain expression crosses your face. I'm not that good.

"He doesn't hate me? It would kill me if he hated me."

"I promise you that he does not hate you." 

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for telling me."

"You didn't think he would be here, did you?"

"I wouldn't have hoped for that. In fact, I was afraid of it, almost so that I didn't come."

"There are some things a person can't take. That you can't ask of someone."

"No," Christine said quietly. "I suppose there aren't." 

(_To be continued_)


	3. Fruits of Love

CHAPTER THREE - Fruits of Love

"Would you like to walk around the garden?" I asked. "We have a fish pond, and they've woken up now from their winter nap."

"I think I've had too much sherry," Christine said.

"Good reason to walk, then."

"This garden looks so wild," she remarked, as we passed thick over-arching boxwoods.

"It's deceptive. It takes more work to keep something looking wild than tame. Look, we can sit here."

Rough stones sat in between flocks of tiny white and yellow Japanese iris, and in the deep navy pool, orange and white shapes flicked back and forth.

Instead of carving a bench, you had taken a rectangular stone and planed off the top, buffing the edges so the children wouldn't bump their heads. She ran her hand over its glossy grey-veined surface and said almost to herself, "So like him to do it this way, so simple." Then she looked up at me with her deep wide eyes. "Meg, can I ask you something? Something that might be hard to answer?"

"Yes, of course. If you'll answer something hard as well."

We had a game long ago called "You first." One would dare the other to do something like climb up on the flies above the stage, or sneak out late at night through the chapel side gate. The other would say, "You first," and we'd go back and forth until one of us yielded and went first, usually me.

"Go ahead," she said. "You first."

"No, please," and this time she yielded.

"How did it happen?" she asked. "I mean, the two of you. All we knew was that you disappeared. They looked for you in the lake but there was nothing. Until you wrote, your mother thought that you were dead."

"Don't remind me. She never really forgave me."

"Then Raoul and I were in New York on holiday, and we saw the theatrical poster for _Hades and Persephone_."

"It was his debut in New York. Did you go?"

"No. But then we read the reviews the next morning. They said you were the principal ballerina. That you were from Paris, and married to the composer. I always wondered, how did it happen?"

"All very quickly. I had just changed for the second act of _Don Juan Triumphant_, to play the squire. It was the fastest costume change I'd ever made in my life. I stripped down right there backstage, and no one even looked at me. Everyone's eyes were on the stage.

"No, don't be embarrassed. You were beautiful that night, glowing. I thought I would faint, my heart was beating so fast. The two of you looked like angels on the bridge, or gods, and then … then when the fire started, I ran down the stairs after my mother. She knew exactly where to go and everyone followed us. She told me not to come any farther but I did anyway. I waded through the lake and saw you and Raoul on the boat, very far away. Then you were gone.

"I went up to the top room, the room with the big bed. I don't know why. I think I wanted to see it, to see everything there. Then I found the mask and I just wanted it, it was so shiny and beautiful. As I reached over to pick it up, I saw a curtain flutter, the one that partly covered the mouth of the tunnel.

"I didn't think at all. I just ran as fast as I could into the dark passageway until I came to a blind end, and then I yelled and pounded on the stone, all around me. He pulled me through a hidden door of some kind. At first I thought to give the mask back to him, but something inside me said No, no more masks. No more deception.

"I threw away his mask in front of him but he didn't get angry. I did worry for a short time that he would kill me, not because of anything he did, so much, but because it seemed to me that it would have been the easiest thing to do to get rid of me if he didn't want me there.

"He had a little cave fixed up down below the fifth cellar, someplace no one knew about, and he took me there. I didn't know what he was going to do next." Then it got hard to speak. "Are you sure you want to hear the rest?"

"Yes," she said. "Please."

"I gave myself to him, Christine. It sounds insane, I know. Even more insane was that he didn't send me away. He didn't leave me there, he didn't kill me, he didn't drag me back to the lake. Instead, he cried, for a long time. He fell asleep in my arms exhausted, and then when he woke up he took me in the dark.

"I knew he didn't love me, not at the beginning. I was this warm comforting body he escaped into, who held him without asking questions. I didn't mind, because from the moment I ran into the tunnel, I was ready to do anything for him. My biggest fear was that he would send me away. He didn't, though. He had things all ready to go to New York. I think he must have planned to take you at some point, but he took me instead. Oh, please don't cry. I don't tell you this to hurt you.

"I'm all right. Please, I want to hear more."

"We had very little money. The Atlantic passage was expensive, and New York cost more than we ever dreamed. I danced in the row, and he played violin in orchestras. Then it seemed like demand for opera exploded. Anyone, especially a European, who had any familiarity with the repertoire could play every night of the week, almost, and he did.

"His capacity for work almost frightened me. I would come home from dancing, fall asleep exhausted, and when I woke I'd serve him coffee at his desk. He hadn't slept at all. I learned to sleep through him composing on the piano.

"By the time Vanderbilt's Metropolitan Opera opened in 1883, he'd already had several commissions. _Hades and Persephone_ was the first, followed by _Iokannon and Salome_, and then _David and Bathsheba_. The Metropolitan asked him for a score, and he wrote _Attila_.

"It was so curious; he would never show himself at premieres. Instead, he'd buy the cheapest ticket, up 'in the heavens,' you know, the highest rows, and dress shabbily, just well enough not to get thrown out. He said that if his work wasn't audible and enjoyable from the worst seats in the house, then it wasn't any good. The story grew up that he never attended his own openings. Of course he did; it's just that no one knew he was there."

"He never lost his love for disguise," she said. "But no one … noticed? His face, I mean?

"I think he wanted to see how long it would take, but they never did notice him sitting in the cheap seats. In New York, having the right clothes and a box at the opera meant a lot more than your face. They had just gotten over a terrible war. There were men walking around without limbs, without ears or noses. But you're getting cold. We'll go back now."

"Thank you for telling me," she said. "I can almost see it in my mind." Then she took my hands and the trees grew very still, as they do right before the sun goes down. "You made him happy."

"As happy as I think he can be. Not always as happy as I would like."

"I made him so unhappy, I thought he would die. You didn't see him the way I did … the last glimpse I had of him as Raoul and I took the boat."

"He didn't die, Christine. You need to know this, it's important. He doesn't understand it, and neither do I, but when you gave him your ring you saved his life. He told me. He was ready to let the mob take him, but before they could, you came back and gave him your ring. Then he didn't want to die anymore, and instead of waiting for them to kill him or arrest him, he ran away. Please tell me, why did you do it? Did you know what would happen?"

"I don't know," she said finally. "I just had to. My father used to tell me about the witches and wizards of the North, how they would hide their souls in some object or sometimes even in another person. They kept their soul safe that way, and they couldn't die. Don't look at me that way, Meg. I know you don't like it when I talk like this."

"No, I don't."

"It was as if I put a part of my soul into that ring. I wanted to send it with him. So that he wouldn't forget me. I'm sorry if it hurts you when I say that."

"It does hurt, but it's all right."

"I sent something of me with him. It left a black hole that nothing could fill. I used to dream that I'd stayed with him, and that we'd had a child. Those weren't ordinary dreams. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and still be in the dream, even though my eyes were open.

"Raoul was in his own room, so considerate of me. He didn't want to bother me, because I didn't want another baby right away. And yet I dreamt of a baby. A baby that could never be."

"That must have been terrible for you. But surely, after your daughter was born, it showed you that you didn't need to fear?"

"He came back to our bed. But there were no more children."

Tears started up in my eyes. "We think we're going to have a baby a year, and then look what happens. It's out of our hands, isn't it?"

She twisted my handkerchief in her hands, back and forth. "Tell me," she said after a second, "does he still have it? The ring, I mean."

Why does it hurt so much not to lie? "Yes," I answered. "But I don't know where it is. I've only seen it a few times, long ago. He doesn't speak of it to me." Then something occurred to me. "Did you … do you want it back?"

Her face twisted with emotion. "No, Meg. Never. Please, don't let him give it back to me. Not while I'm living, anyway. He doesn't want to, does he? I told you, he needs to have it. You have to tell him that."

"Of course I will. I'll tell him anything you want," and I meant it.

She sat on the bench and silently cried. She used to cry like that at night in the dormitory, so she wouldn't disturb anyone.

I gave her my handkerchief and put my arm around her. This would be so much easier if we had some years in between us, instead of nothing but those last raw months so long ago.

"Please, don't. Look at all you have, your children, and a man who loves you. Yes, he may have said harsh things to you, but men say harsh things when they hurt. Is that why you won't go with him to Brussels, because of what he said?"

"I'm not crying for myself."

Oh, God. We're all so tangled together, and no end in sight. You were wrong, my love. She did love you. She still does.

Calmer, she said, "As for Raoul, I don't know. Yes, I'm angry with what he said, although he did apologize. He wants me there with him when he goes abroad, that's true. I've gone almost every time, except when I couldn't because of the babies.

"I'm not good at parties, I know that, but I watch things. I pay attention to what's going on. Then he'll ask me, what do you think of So-and-so, or, what did you make of his wife spending so much time in the parlor talking with the ambassador's maid, and I tell him. My impressions. Sometimes it helps him to just talk, even if I don't understand most of it."

"It sounds like you fought because you were afraid for your son. Fear makes people do stupid things. It makes people think stupid things about others."

"It's your turn now," she said. "Can we talk on the way back?"

"Would you like to walk through the orchard?" I asked. "It's beautiful just as the sun's going down. But if you don't feel like it, we can skip it."

"No," she said. "I'd like to see it."

The pear orchard spread out before us, heavy with white blossoms tinted pink in the falling sun. A few bees headed home for the night, and the air was so still we could barely smell the blooms.

"What do you do with all these pears?" she asked.

"Ancel is Rochelle's husband, and our gardener. He makes wine and is trying to branch out into pear brandy, but so far hasn't had much success. When we bought the place, these trees were almost buried under brambles. Ancel cleaned them out, pruned them, and amazingly enough, the first year there was a small crop. Since then it's gotten better. I'll send some pear wine home with you, if you'd like."

"I would."

We walked back through the orchard and past the pond until I could bring myself to speak. "You know, just as you were afraid to meet me, to come here, I was afraid to have you. I know you promised never to tell, but it always terrified me that you and Raoul still knew. You knew everything that anyone would ever need to find us. Well, not find us, because we were always more or less in plain sight, but expose us."

"Expose you?" she asked, confused.

"Because of Joseph Buquet. Because of Piangi."

"Piangi lived, you know."

"Yes. I saw the papers in LeHavre, when we were on our way to New York. Our lives are in your hands. You must know that."

"There was your mother," she offered. "She knew, too."

"Mother would never tell anyone. Well, maybe she confessed it to the priest, I don't know. She loved him, and she would have hanged herself before knowing she put him on a prison ship. I didn't understand that at the time, which is why I didn't write her at first. But I see it now."

"Why I should tell?" she said quietly, but with a fierce undertone. "Why would I do that? You didn't think your mother would. Why would I?"

"I don't know," I said, feeling stupid. "Jealousy, maybe. Revenge. He hurt you, Christine, in a lot of ways."

"We hurt each other. No matter how much he hurt me, I could never tell. He asked us both not to. He begged us, with tears."

"You still love him." It was a fact, baldly stated.

"Yes."

"And it keeps him alive."

"I need to know he's alive. That he's somewhere in the world, alive."

"What about Raoul? He had every reason to hate him."

"Don't fear me. Don't fear Raoul. Raoul loves me. He lost his temper with me, but he does love me. He wouldn't do something like that. It would kill me, and he knows it. He wanted revenge for awhile. But not any more.

"Listen, Meg. Raoul told me of Devil's Island. There are sharks that swim in the bay. They sense the ships coming and they swarm. Men die on the prison ships, and the guards don't even bother to bury them. They just dump them in the bay before they dock. I covered my ears. I didn't want to hear it. He didn't understand at first why I cried. Then he knew."

"Oh, my God," I said. "The horror of it. To think that … " Our eyes met, and there it was before us both. Your body, sliding into the water, flesh turning to red mist, bones crunched.

I had to tell her. I even wanted to. "He still loves you. It's behind his eyes, in his compositions, in the nights when he doesn't sleep. But we have a life, and I thank you for that."

She squeezed my hand. "Of course he loves you. Look around you. Don't you see it? It's everywhere."

The path faded into purple with the twilight. Through the boxwoods I could see the house. Right at the horizon the green spark of Venus came out against the violet night. I said a prayer for the dead of Devil's Island, who were your brothers; for Raoul and his suffering; and for her, that she would keep loving you.

"Are you going to go to Brussels?" I asked.

"I think so," she said. "Yes."

The kitchen lights were on, and through the window I could see the red-headed coachman, deep in conversation with Nabilah. She still covered her face, but looked at him intently with her luminous eyes. Rochelle fed the boys their porridge and milk before bed, and the first fireflies winked on the lawn.

The liquid golden light poured over us as we walked in.

"We're back," I said.

(_Finis_)


End file.
